Abstract

A full theory of thermoelectric transport in superlattices, including the well width and energy dependence of the optical and acoustic phononscattering and the effects of confinement in raising valley degeneracy is developed. It is shown that these features result in qualitatively significant modifications in the predicted figure of merit of superlattice systems. Results are given for PbTe superlattices, and comments are made on recent experimental results for such systems.